Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Home "alone" (part 1)

Lenore has been in Florida since Friday so I have been home "alone" with the twins (and the dogs). This has put a damper on both my ability to work out and my blogging, but I'm trying to catch up.

I ordered a Baby Jogger POD, which is a combination bike trailer / jogging stroller. It's a little pricey, but I'm hoping this will let Lenore and me to work out together more often, and in theory it should last them a few years. I am a little concerned about the amount of shoulder room, since they're already pretty cozy in there:

(The Chariot Cougar 2 has a bit more shoulder room, but it's even more expensive.) On Friday, I took the kids out for a quick stroll in the POD, taking the dogs along, too. It seemed to work fine, so on Saturday I went for a 40-minute run... and immediately felt the impact of the extra 70 lbs or so I was pushing along. Even going on a flat surface was a lot harder, perhaps in part because I couldn't swing my arms for counterbalance, and any minimal incline was immediately noticeable. Interestingly, it felt more like a whole-body workout, since pushing the stroller required engaging my arm, back, and core muscles. I ended up feeling pretty exhausted by the end, despite running only about a 11-minute mile. As it turns out, I wasn't the only one who got tuckered out:

I'm actually thinking that this will be good for my triathlon training. My training plan calls for "long" runs starting at 40 minutes and building up to 77 minutes over the course of 3 months, which makes sense aiming at a 10K run, but since I just finished a 10K training plan, a 40-minute session just doesn't feel like that long a run normally, and I could relatively comfortably knock out 77 minutes tomorrow if needed. But with a stroller, it's a whole different story and 40 minutes seems like a good starting point. In the actual race, of course, I'll be running sans stroller, but I will be tired from the swim and the bike, so it should be somewhat similar.